by Alex Ko
“Think I’m stupid?” the waiter demanded. “Think I don’t know when I’m being followed?”
Josh sat up, his head spinning and his arms covered in burning bruises. He got to his feet and charged back up the steps. The waiter was busy fighting Jessica on the landing, blocking her kicks with one arm and reaching for her hair with the other. Josh leaped, aiming a high side kick to the back of the man’s head. As he hurtled through the air he saw Jessica’s foot coming up in a plunging front kick – they’d meet in the middle of the man’s head. No way he’d be walking away from that...
Except that the waiter ducked. Josh winced as their feet slammed together in midair. Their knees buckled, Josh crumpled to the floor, the sole of his foot aching worse than a thousand wasp stings.
Josh tried to get to his feet, but fell back again, his leg twitching nastily when he tried to put his weight on it. The man seized Jessica and threw her against the banister. Josh watched helplessly as she hit the metal rail and tipped over it head first.
Josh reached out to grab her skirt, but the fabric slipped through his fingers.
With a scream, Jessica fell.
“Jess!” Josh yelled, springing to his feet despite the pain. Jessica twisted and her hand slapped down on the metal banister. She held on tight, dangling over sixteen floors of gaping space. One of her shoes slipped off and clattered all the way down to the bottom, bouncing noisily off the banisters on the way.
The waiter was already racing away, down the stairs.
“Help!” gasped Jessica.
“Hang on,” Josh said, reaching over the banister with both hands. “I’ve got you.” Jessica grasped his arm with her free hand and he pulled her up, her feet scrambling to get a toe-hold on the stairs and metal railing. His arm ached, but he managed to grab her under her other arm and finally she toppled back over to safety.
“You okay?” Josh asked.
“That was too close,” Jessica said. “Yes. Yes, I’m fine – but he’s getting away!”
Josh peered over into the stairwell. The waiter was a few floors down. Jessica got to her feet, limped a few steps and then started running. Josh ran after her. The bite of the bruising on his foot was hurting him less now, and he thought that the waiter was slowing as they reached level ten, seven, three, minus one...
They got to the bottom of the stairs, totally out of breath, and Josh fell on the fire exit, stumbling through as it opened.
Beyond, there was a basement car park – an enormous dingy space full of gleaming limousines and zippy hybrids belonging to the residents of the hotel. Josh looked around, his heart sinking right into his boots. There was no sign at all of the waiter...only the distant roar of a car engine.
Jessica looked out into the car park, shook her head and leaned heavily against the wall. “Oh...fine,” she gasped. “Go ahead and run. That’s just...fine. Cheater.”
Josh glanced at the door, which he was still holding open. A large sign read: Alarm Will Sound When Door Is Opened; a couple of cut wires were hanging out just beneath it.
“What now?” Jessica asked.
“I guess we...go back. Find out if Takeshi’s okay. Meet up with Team O and make our report.”
“All right,” Jessica sighed, and she went back to the stairwell to retrieve her shoe. “But let’s take the lift back up, okay? I think I’ve had enough of stairs for one lifetime.”
As the twins emerged from the lift they found Takeshi looking very ill, being wheeled out of the bar on a stretcher. An elderly doctor was talking to the players and journalists, who had all gathered around the doorway, looking horrified. Shini’s eyes were still wide, and Jamie Elton was chewing on his knuckle. “He’ll be all right now,” said the doctor. “He might even play on Saturday. We’ll do our best.”
The doctor turned and gave Josh a wink as they got out of the lift to make room for the stretcher. Josh did a double-take. It was Mr. Nakamura, Team O’s medical expert.
“No sign of our friend Kobayashi,” Mr. Nakamura whispered. “He’s made a run for it. Mimasu says she’s sorry about the technology failure, something to do with navigating hotel security.”
Josh gave a tiny hand-wave, as if to say No big deal. Yeah, no worries, my heart may never be the same, but apart from that, we’re good, he thought.
“Anyway, I think this party’s wrapping up.” Mr. Nakamura twitched a smile at Josh and Jessica. “See you at HQ in a couple of hours.”
Josh watched the banks of computer screens as Nana tapped away at her control panel, bringing up everything they had on Minister Kobayashi.
“It’s not much,” she said. “Barely more than you could find out with an internet search engine. Middle class family, graduated from university – he was treasurer of the Musical Theatre Society, but they kicked him out for being too tight with the finances. He got a job in the civil service, and then went into politics.” She scrolled through more data. “These government emails show he is not exactly well-liked, but no more than that. There’s not even a hint of corruption.”
“Could we have the wrong man?” Jessica asked. Mimasu shook her head.
“Absolutely not. The footage we have from the corridor before Takeshi was poisoned clearly shows him standing with the waiter, pointing to the poisoned canapés. He is certainly behind these attacks on Shini.”
“But we have no motive, other than a sudden desire to get rich quick,” said Sachiko.
“Perhaps,” Nana said, turning away from the screens to look at Granny, “we should change tack. We only have two more days – that may not be enough to catch Kobayashi and get him to confess. But we might be able to find out more through other channels. If it’s a gambling scam, a trip to Shinjuku might be in order.”
“Why Shinjuku?” Jessica asked.
“It is the gambling hub of all Japan,” said Sachiko. “There are several gambling houses in the area – both legal and...not so legal. They are a known hangout of many Yakuza; where they spend their ill-gotten yen.”
“Indeed,” Granny nodded. “A good idea, Nana-san. I will take a trip to the Omajinai. It is my favourite gambling den, the most disreputable I know. If crooked gambling on this scale is taking place, somebody there will know about it.”
Josh blinked. Had his granny really just said the words “my favourite gambling den”? Just yesterday she was condemning all gambling, calling it filthy! He glanced at Jessica, who was staring at Granny with her mouth hanging slightly open.
“Well – we’re ready to go,” Jessica said. “Whatever we need to do to keep Shini safe...”
Granny shook her head. “You may ride in the surveillance van with the team, but the Omajinai is no place for children.” Josh blinked again. The way she frowned and pursed her lips – exactly like the straight-laced grandmother they’d known until this holiday, and not at all like someone who knew enough gambling dens to have a favourite. Will I ever get used to Granny Murata’s contradictions? he wondered.
Josh had been a bit sceptical when he first saw the old off-white van with the grimy ladder fixed on top. But behind the blacked-out windows there was a small surveillance console, a flat screen, racks of headphones, ear-buds and microphones, and enough comfy chairs for Josh, Jessica and all of Team O.
As they drove through Shinjuku, Josh blinked out of the tinted windows at the sheer number of neon signs and flashing lights. Apparently this was a hotspot for bars and nightclubs, as well as dodgy gambling dens.
The Omajinai was a Chinese gambling house on a quieter backstreet. The van parked around the corner in an alleyway and Granny climbed out, moving as if she was a frail old lady.
Nana pulled her chair up to the console, a pair of enormous headphones totally covering the sides of her small head. Her fingers danced across the buttons and slides, while her eyes stayed fixed on the screen showing the CCTV feed from outside. The camera whirred around at her command and focused on the dingy entrance to the Omajinai gambling den.
It was pretty low-key, by Shinjuku s
tandards. It had a plain grey front door, and no windows Josh could see. The door was flanked by two decorative bushes and two large Chinese men with their hair slicked back in ponytails. They opened the door for Granny, and one of them patted her up and down, searching her for weapons. Jessica gasped and shot Mr. Nakamura a shocked look.
“It’s all right,” Mr. Nakamura said. “They will find nothing – she is wearing only her ear-bud and microphone, and they are too small to be detected.”
“No camera?” Josh asked. “No weapons? Nothing?”
Mr. Nakamura shook his head. “Mimi-san will arm herself, if the need arises, but the plan is simply to stay incognito and gather information. For visuals, we will have to rely on the place’s own security cameras.”
Mimasu raised a hand, as if to say I’m on it. She was beside Nana, tapping furiously into a laptop while endless strings of text scrolled by. About twenty minutes passed in near-silence, with only the occasional word from Granny coming over their headphones.
“If only the passwords for the Omajinai surveillance feeds were as easy to hack as the ones for the civic CCTV cameras...” Mimasu sighed, stretching her fingers out with a chorus of little arthritic clicks. “I’ll have it in a second.”
“Chow,” said Granny’s voice in Josh’s ear. It was accompanied by the clacking of tile counters being moved around on a wooden table. Josh supposed that after the gambling revelation, he shouldn’t be surprised by anything Granny did. Not even speaking perfect Mandarin and playing mah-jong like a pro. He knew the game involved picking up little painted tiles from an elaborate layout, and putting them down again. Beyond that, it was a mystery.
“Ah!” Mimasu exclaimed. “There it is. Nana-san, I’m passing you the codes now.”
The screen flickered and changed to a black and white view of a cavernous, smoke-filled room inside the Omajinai. There were a few banks of slot machines, and a long bar in the middle. Most of the space was taken up by dozens of small square tables, most of them set up for mah-jong matches, with four players sitting around each table. Spectators and gamblers milled around, drinking at the bar or watching matches.
Granny spoke again, a string of Mandarin words Josh couldn’t even begin to follow, and laid down her hand of mah-jong tiles with a series of smug little clicks. Josh searched for the movement on the screen, and finally spotted her. She was at a table near the bottom left-hand corner. From the way she scooped chips into a neat pile, and the furiously jealous expressions on the faces of the three Chinese ladies she was playing against, Josh guessed she’d just won. A spectator clapped politely and moved on to a different table.
A young lady in a slim-fitting red kimono shuffled up to their table, bowed, and started to reset the tiles for a new game. Granny poured a new cup of tea for the lady on her right, with an innocent smile that made her opponents frown even harder. Josh noticed that her pile of chips was twice the size of all theirs put together.
“You should probably lose this hand, Mimi-san,” Mr. Yamamoto said, looking over Josh’s shoulder. “Or those ladies will make a scene!”
“They do look about ready to attack you with their purses,” Sachiko added, laughing.
“I hope not, for their sake,” said Jessica. “They don’t know what they’re getting into with Granny.”
On screen, they saw Granny raise her hand, apparently scratching her head. There were two soft thunk sounds. She’d tapped her ear-bud, twice to indicate yes. She didn’t look happy about it though.
As the four ladies scooped up their new tiles, Granny spoke again, another stream of Mandarin.
“She has mentioned the football game,” Mr. Yoshida translated.
“You don’t think those women could have anything to do with the scheme?” Jessica frowned, staring at the little old ladies.
“No,” said Nana. “But she has shown her interest in the subject. Look at the men at the table behind her.”
Josh peered at the screen. At the table Nana was pointing to, four young men with slicked-back hair, wearing shiny suits – Josh thought one of them might’ve actually been made of leather – were gambling with four enormous piles of gaming chips.
“Almost certainly, those are young Yakuza,” Nana explained. “Newly rich, and foolish with money by the way they gamble. In a while, Mimi-san will talk about going to a sporting bookmakers and placing a bet on Japan to win the game on Saturday. If one of them knows about the match fixing, he may not be able to resist gloating to the harmless old woman, just a little. It would be enough for her to know she’s on the right track.”
“Does that work?” Josh asked, astonished.
“More often than you’d think,” Mr. Nakamura said, with a wink. “Many older Yakuza are wise and cunning, but the young ones are frequently foolhardy.”
“On the other hand,” Mimasu said, “we may not have to wait for that. Look who has just arrived.”
On the screen, a figure was standing in the doorway. The young woman in the kimono was taking his coat. He looked around and coughed, obviously uncomfortable in the disreputable surroundings.
“Kobayashi!” Josh gasped.
“That pretty much proves he’s guilty, right?” Jessica asked Mr. Yamamoto. He narrowed his eyes.
“It is certainly a good indication. Do you see him, Mimi-san?”
Granny’s ear-bud gave another two soft thunks for “yes”. Josh watched as the young woman escorted Kobayashi between the tables, right to the back of the room, and...Josh leaned in to the screen. He’d disappeared.
“Where’s he gone?” Peering closer, Josh could just make out an arch in the back of the gambling room. Kobayashi must have gone through it, but Josh couldn’t see into the darkness beyond. “Where does that go?”
“One second,” Mimasu tapped furiously on her keyboard, and the screen split in two, one half still showing the gambling room and the other showing the view from a different CCTV camera. It was a dim concrete corridor, leading to a single door. The young woman and Kobayashi walked into shot and she knocked on the door. It opened, and Josh caught the briefest glimpse of several men standing inside, before Kobayashi disappeared and the door closed firmly behind him.
Nana clicked her tongue in irritation. “We need to know what they are saying,” she said. “But there’s no camera in that room.”
“Deng yi huir,” Granny said, holding up her hand. She stood up, but Josh didn’t catch her next words. She shuffled through the crowd and ducked under the archway right at the back of the gambling room. She reappeared on the other CCTV camera, moving along the corridor towards the back door. Then she paused right beside it, bending her head to listen.
Jessica bit her lip. “She’s really exposed,” she muttered. “If anyone else goes into that corridor...”
“We have to take the risk,” Mimasu said. “We need to know what they’re talking about in there.”
Josh nodded. If he listened hard, he could just about hear men’s voices coming in over Granny’s microphone, speaking in muffled Japanese. He couldn’t make out any of the words, though.
A movement on the image of the gambling room caught his eye, and he focused on that half of the screen again. Two men in uniform black shirts and visible earpieces were standing in the main doorway to the gambling room, looking around. One of them beckoned over a grey-haired waiter, who listened to their questions for a moment before pointing to the left of the screen...right at the empty chair where Granny had been sitting. The men strained their necks, looking around the room.
“Oh no,” Josh muttered. Jessica followed his gaze and gasped.
“Granny, be careful,” she whispered. “There are two men looking for you!”
Josh swallowed down a hard lump that had formed in his throat. “It’s no good – she’s exposed and unarmed...” He looked over at Mr. Yakamura, hoping to see a reassuring smile on the old man’s face. The frown he saw instead made chills run down his spine.
“This is bad,” Mr. Yakamura said. “That place is full
of Yakuza. She could be massively outnumbered. We should go in.”
“You will not risk our cover,” Granny’s voice whispered in Josh’s ear. “I forbid it.”
“Jess and I could go in,” Josh volunteered, without hesitation. He looked at Jessica. She’d gone pale, but her lips were set in a thin, determined line and she nodded.
“No, absolutely not,” Granny hissed.
“But you need backup, Mimi-san,” Mr. Yamamoto said thoughtfully. “You trained them yourself – are you sure they aren’t ready?” He caught Josh’s eye and winked. Josh swelled with pride – Mr. Y clearly did believe they were ready, or he wouldn’t have suggested it.
There was a heavy pause, before Granny’s voice spoke again. “They can come in to be my lookouts, no more,” she said.
Mr. Yamamoto covered his microphone and leaned close to Josh. “Do what you need to, to protect our leader. Understood?”
“Hai,” Josh said, jumping to his feet. “Let’s go!”
“And quick,” Jessica said, getting to her feet. “Granny’s in danger!”
Josh shoved his hands into his pockets, trying to look casual, as he and Jessica strolled towards the front door of the Omajinai.
“You can’t get in past those brutes,” Nana’s voice said in Josh’s ear. “They’ll never let a pair of children inside. There must be a back way in we can’t see on our cameras. Don’t go for the front door. Keep circling the building.”
“Hai,” Josh murmured. They passed the door and turned a corner into a narrow alleyway. Josh saw a row of flowering shrubs along the side of the building, but no door. Then he felt Jessica’s hand gripping his elbow. She pulled him up against the wall, in a small gap among the shrubbery. She pointed upwards.
“A window!” she whispered. Josh looked up. The window ledge was a couple of metres over their heads. The glass looked dark and grimy, and the frame just wide enough for them to slip through. “Give me a leg up,” Jessica said. “I’ll get it open.”
